Bonds without Borders: A History of the Eurobond Market

CHAPTER 3 Oil and Turmoil 1970–1979

Minos Zombanakis was born in Crete, the son of a local farmer. In 1943 he set off for Athens University but, it was wartime, and the teaching was sporadic. So the young Zombanakis found casual jobs to survive and made up for the lack of teaching with self-study. In 1949 he was drafted into the Greek army, having still not completed his degree. He returned to Greece a lieutenant, after seeing action in the Greek civil war and the Korean War. On leaving the army he went to Washington where he worked on the implementation of the Marshall Plan for Greece. While in the US, he tried to enter Harvard University but with no degree he was unable to register at the graduate school. Undeterred, he had to pay his own way and follow lectures from the back of the class. Eventually he won a scholarship and emerged with a master's degree in public administration. From Harvard he moved to Lebanon but as civil disturbances increased in Beirut he decided to leave and seek a banking position via his former US contacts. He took up a position with Manufacturers Hanover Trust Company of New York as their Middle East representative. Zombanakis was stationed for 10 years in Rome travelling extensively throughout southern Europe and the Middle East.

By the early 1960s the Eurodollar interbank deposit market was well established. As the Eurocurrency pool grew, the deposits were lent out for longer periods. However there was a resistance to issuing term loans, say, ...